We got to our B&B in the Loire Valley late last night, which was unfortunate because the room was (for the first time on the trip) very lame. So we checked out this morning and started looking around the town of Amboise for an alternative, which proved harder than we thought because apparently it’s a holiday weekend. I was getting a bit stressed, but finally we found a vacancy at this hotel called “Bellagio”. It’s pretty funny that they picked that name for this place, because it’s nothing like its fancy namesake in Las Vegas. It’s basically just a bunch of apartments scattered around on a large piece of land with no trees and no absolutely no style or character. When I first saw it and remarked that it looked like “low-income housing”, little did I know that it would be my home for the next two nights. Oh well, at least it’s spacious, and (unlike the last place) clean and comfortable.
On the bright side, we saw two amazing châteaus! First, the royal château at the center of Amboise itself. It sits up on a hill right next to the river that runs through town, and it has a long history with lots of French kings until the French royalty decided that they liked Paris better than the countryside. Most of the castle isn’t standing anymore, but the part that is still there looks amazing. Leonardo da Vinci is buried in the chapel, because he spent a lot of his life in Amboise. And there was lots of grass for Anna to run around in.
The other château we saw was even better... mind-blowing, I’d say. It’s called Château de Chenonceau, and it looks like it belongs in a Disney movie. A lot of its history is dominated by queens (as opposed to kings) and as Anca pointed out, you can definitely sense the woman’s touch. The castle spans a river, and it’s surrounded by huge, fabulous gardens. There’s also a hedge maze, which I was very excited about because I’ve been a fan of labyrinths ever since I was little. For this one I put Anna on my shoulders and she did the navigation, pointing which way she wanted me to turn. She was a natural! We made it to the center and out again on the first try. It was rainy and we got a bit wet, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for our visit.